A dead enemy always smells good.

—Aulus Vitellius, 69

I detest war. It spoils armies.

—Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, c. 1820

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1773

As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.

—John Donne, 1622

War to the castles; peace to the cottages.

—Nicolas Chamfort, 1790

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.

—Carl Sandburg, 1936

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

—Leon Trotsky

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. War is hell.

—William Tecumseh Sherman, 1879

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, c. 1555

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

—Seneca, c. 50

You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. 

—William Randolph Hearst, 1898

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

—Mao Zedong, 1938

Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

—Winston Churchill, 1939

War is sweet to those who don’t know it.

—Desiderius Erasmus, 1508

I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

—Louisa May Alcott, 1863

I have loved war too well.

—Louis XIV, 1715

War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.

—Jonathan Swift, 1697